Multiple Cameras / Cards

If you are using more than one digital camera and use separate memory
cards, you will eventually encounter a situation where the files will
have identical names! This is especially likely to happen if you happen
to share a memory card between the two cameras and then go back to
using separate memory cards.

Why? A default mode of operation for most digital cameras is to auto-increment
the highest image serial number seen on the memory card (or the last
used in the camera if the card is empty). If you use card A on camera
A, shoot until IMG_5123, then put the card
in camera B, Camera B will begin to shoot at IMG_5124
until, say, IMG_5145. Now, placing Card
A back into Camera A causes Camera A to start at IMG_5146.
Shooting with Camera A creates IMG_5146
to (for example) IMG_5160. Placing empty
Card B into Camera B will cause the next shots taken to be numbered
from IMG_5146 until (for example) IMG_5170.

Now, trying to import the two memory cards will cause the file namess
of IMG_5146 to IMG_5160
to collide! You will need to rename something.

Two solutions:

Downloader Pro offers the ability to tag the filename with a
special identifier for each camera that you use. Eg. I have a
Canon 10d and a Canon
S30. If I wanted, I could have my files named like:

Manually change the serial number (for renaming) to be different
for this import batch. In other words, I'll arbitrarily change the
files to be:

Images from Canon 10d

Images from Canon S30

20040110_5145.jpg
20040110_5146.jpg
20040110_5147.jpg
...

20040110_8146.jpg
20040110_8147.jpg
...

I use solution #2. The reason? I don't encounter the "crossover"
problem (with image serial numbers conflicting) that often. It has
happened with only two import batches so far (out of tens of thousands
of photos). You can also get around it by manually resetting the serial
numbers within one of the cameras if you notice that the serial numbers
begin to get close. And since I don't encounter the problem that often,
I don't feel that it is worth adding extra characters to the file
name for every file in my database. And besides, there is almost zero
impact of changing the serial numbers on the image file names. All
it is useful for is to keep file names unique!

Naming format associated with original Canon files

Reader's Comments:

Please leave your comments or suggestions below!

2009-04-03

Fortunato Navarro

Sherwood, I use the same name format than you. Perhaps you want to check jhead http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/
which can read EXIF capture date and rename the image file exactly as you mention just with option:jhead -nf %H-%M-%s_%H-%M-%S
and many options to adjust and present exif data.

2009-03-16

Sherwood Botsford

I wrote a small program that renames pix YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS. IF there is more than one in a second they are sequenced a, bc. Since I can't use two cameras at once this works well for me. If you use two cameras on the same shoot, make sure they keep the same time. This has the advantage that alphabetical order is also chronological order.

2008-07-19

Jonathan Wearne

Great Site. I especially like your articles on file naming. I've settled on reverse date order with a number series as a suffix. The first photo taken today: 080719-001

My partner arrived in New Delhi yesterday and begins a Rajastan tour with Intrepid. She has a Nikon D80. Would be very funny if you said hello to her! Her name is Kelly.

Regards,
Jonathan

Hey Jonathan -- Thanks!
PS> I can't say that I ran into your partner -- many of these places were quite populated

2006-07-21

Ronen

Is there a way to reset the number the camera uses? I have Nikon 4500E and couldn't find how to do that.

Also - I used to import photos using the default windows XP utility that does this by default. It used the 'Picture xxx' and started from 1 every time.

Then I switched to the import of Adobe Photoshop Album, and then pictures started arriving using DSCN0001 (it started from one on the first import and now it grows).

Who sets the number - the camera or Adobe utility? If the camera as you suggest then how suddenly it started from 001 when I switched software?

I am not familiar with the Nikon digicam, so I don't know for certain how you might be able to reset the numbering. However, if there isn't a menu option for it, you could try one of the following:

Insert a completely blank memory card (either new or formatted by windows XP, then formatted by your digicam)

Rename one of the files on your memory card to DSCN9999 and shoot another photo on the card

The naming scheme that the Windows XP Scanner and Camera Wizard is completely destructive -- ie. it generates the entire filename (and numbering from 001) from scratch each time. However, the naming and numbering that you see with the Adobe Photoshop Album is most likely the real names of the image files that were created by the camera itself. They probably match the filenames that you'd find on the memory card itself (i.e. you open up the memory card drive that appears under My Computer).

In the default settings, Adobe Photoshop Album doesn't rename the files. So the numbering scheme that you see is completely dependent upon your camera and the contents of the memory card that you use to shoot the images, not the computer. If the Nikon digicams work anything like the Canon digicams: